


Days Revisted

by MissScorp



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apologies, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Drama, Gen, Guilt, Regrets, Rick comes to terms with death, Rick finds himself trapped, Saved by a savior, Walkers Are A Threat, character introspection, outnumbered in a fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/pseuds/MissScorp
Summary: Rick Grimes finds himself surrounded by an oncoming horde when an unlikely stranger shows up to help him.For Bad Things Happen Bingo: Outnumbered In A Fight.
Collections: Bad Things Happen





	Days Revisted

Rick Grimes decided if he didn't have bad luck?

He'd have no luck at all.

Because _bad luck_ was the only logical explanation he had for why he found himself in the middle of a country road as a line of undead lurched out of the woods on all sides of him.

 _He shouldn't have snuck out of the farmhouse_ , he realized.

He shouldn't have told that dopey white mutt to stay and keep watch over the woman and kids he left peacefully sleeping.

Dammit, they needed supplies, though. What food they had, they rationed days ago, making sure the kids got the majority of it.

Those stores ran out last night.

If he didn't get back with the assortment of food items he managed to find in a gas station grocery mart, Raya and the kids would have nothing to eat that day.

To get back to them, though, he had to deal with the oncoming horde. Doing that meant setting down the bag containing the precious food items he managed to find. Rick swallowed his guilt and regret as he set it on the ground before reaching for the Colt Python strapped to his hip.

He had six shots in the chamber and enough in his pocket for five reloads.

Thirty bullets, total.

Enough for the number of walkers slowly making their way towards him but nowhere near enough if more lurched out of the woods.

Rick considered his options as he raised the Colt.

He really only had one: to make every shot he had, count.

He fired at the closest walker, watching with grim satisfaction as brain matter splashed across the rotting faces of those moving behind the one he hit.

_One down, too many to go._

Rick kept firing, on autopilot at that point, his gun training from his days at the academy playing in a loop at the back of his mind.

Aim, fire, watch his target go down in a spray of blood and bone.

Rinse and repeat.

The stench wafting off the undead rose with the rising heat. Rick gagged as the scent of rotted, decayed flesh, pus, and other things he didn't want to think about clawed its way down his throat.

The collective clamor of the walkers, their discordant sounds, all reminded him of the incessant buzzing of bees.

 _Murder hornets_ , he amended as he aimed at another approaching walker. The bullet entered the man's left temple and exited the right in a spray of gore and gray brain matter.

He kept shooting, pausing only long enough to reload.

To do any less would bring about that end he desperately wanted to avoid.

He had a family to survive for: his own, as well as the one that came into his care a few days ago.

He needed to survive for them as much as Lori and Carl.

The walkers stiffened as the bullets tore through their fragile skulls. They showed no physical or emotional response to pain. They reacted to nothing but one thing: to feed.

Only distantly did Rick qualify that as on him.

They went down, one by one, but were quickly replaced by more.

His bullets were quickly running out.

As was the sands in the hourglass that was his life.

Time.

It could have been a minute, five, or twenty.

All Rick knew was he was in deep shit.

Seriously, deep shit, in fact.

He had gotten caught in that undead blitzkrieg he feared.

I'm _gonna die_ , Rick realized as he took aim at a woman with a huge hole in what had once been her chest cavity.

He was trapped; surrounded.

Had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

And nobody to call for backup.

His only source of support was waiting for him back at a farmhouse half a mile away.

Even if Raya could get to him, he didn't want her to take the risk.

Not when she had two kids who depended on her for their survival.

 _I'm responsible for Kai and Rose_ , he thought as he reloaded his gun. _Same as I am for Carl._

He was the only father the teens had ever known.

Kai's father having been murdered before the boy was born and Rose's...

Well, he was a class A son of a bitch who chose his own needs over his daughter.

He chose to fill that role of parent and guardian after the trio found him bleeding in the back of the sedan he took refuge in.

The decision wasn't a hard one for him to make.

Rick prided himself on being an honest, upstanding, and moralistic man.

The sorta man his dad had been, and that his granddad had been before him.

_I am all that stands between them kids and death._

In that moment, Rick's life became totally clear. He saw everything and understood _why_ , perfectly. He knew what he had to do, he knew what he was going to do, and he wasn't stopping to think or worry about how he was going to feel about it tomorrow.

There wouldn't be any more tomorrows.

_Lori, Carl, I'm sorry. I meant to find you. To fix things. To fix our family. I can't, though._

He ran outta time.

If Rick was being honest, really honest, he'd admit the clock stopped weeks ago for him.

After a routine request for backup landed him in the hospital after some asshole shot him.

How he survived, why, Rick didn't know.

Maybe this was his chance finally to make all the wrongs he had done in life, right.

If it was, well, he was sure as shit gonna take as many of these undead fucks with him as he could before kicking off.

Rick had the satisfaction of seeing one undead fall to the ground, their lifeless eyes staring up at the blue sky overhead after he shot it through the forehead.

It was short-lived as another walker stumbled out in front of him. Rick heard the snap of its jaw as it worked what remained of its mouth. Its fetid breath blew across his face. He wanted to believe he only imagined how bad these things smelled, but there was no dreaming something as foul as the stench of the walking dead.

Another walker joined the first, its mouth making chewing motions while its blackened fingers opened and closed like lobster claws.

 _Yeah, I'm gonna die_ , he told them as he lifted his gun, _but so are you, assholes._

They dropped in a spray of brain matter, blood, and bone. Rick reloaded his gun with his remaining six bullets, oddly detached, and feeling weirdly relaxed about his impending death.

A walker moaned behind him. _Here it is_ , he thought as he slowly turned. _Here's how I die._

A Rick Grimes buffet for a buncha undead shitheads.

Something whistled by his ear, causing him to flinch.

He discovered it was an arrow when it sunk into the forehead of the walker about to belly up to the Rick Grimes bar.

A frown furrowed his brow as he stared at the shaft of that arrow.

Red and blue feathers.

_Like Raya uses._

Rick found himself plunged back into reality with that realization. His earlier detachment fled, leaving him with a pounding head, and cramping belly.

 _Raya? She's here_? His frown deepened. _But... how_?

She didn't know where he was.

Not that she couldn't get that white dog of hers to sniff out his trail.

Before Rick could turn to confirm it was Raya who came to his aide, the familiar thwack of an arrow being fired again sounded. It was followed by that squishy sound that said it found its intended mark.

"You Sheriff Grimes?" a voice called out that didn't belong to either the woman who used those arrows or her thirteen year old son, Kai. "Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes?"

Fear and anxiety added to the grief and regret already kicking a hole in his gut. How had the man gotten one of Raya's arrows?

Was it coincidence?

 _Or_... he didn't let himself finish that thought.

He couldn't.

The thought was simply too unbearable.

"Yeah." Rick slowly turned to face the man. "I'm Rick Grimes." His eyes narrowed as he studied the stranger. A navy colored beanie covered his dark hair and a bandanna with a phoenix on it clung to the lower half of his face. He wasn't overly tall or thickly muscled. Loose-fitting brown pants and boots were paired with a black trench coat, fingerless gloves, and an ivory button-down shirt. If not for the bow in his hand, the quiver on his back, and the handles of two knives hidden inside his coat, Rick might have believed the man simply another survivor of this shit-show he woke up too. "Who are you?"

"Most people call me Jesus." The man's eyes, neither blue nor green, sparked with that same aura of mystery as Raya's. Crinkled at the corners when he smiled behind his mask. " _She_ calls me Kenobi, though."

 _She_? Rick's brow furrowed.

"You know Raya?"

A slight nod. "I've known her since I was nine."

Rick studied the man again.

Was it possible he was one of her brothers?

He was about to ask which of her brothers — _Jason, Tim_? He couldn't be Dick or Damian since he had seen a picture of them — he was when another line of undead erupted from the trees and started making their way towards them.

"Shit..." he breathed out. "Shit, shit, shit."

Double-shit as he lifted his Colt and fired.

 _Click_!

He was outta bullets.

Not that it mattered.

The man — Kenobi or Jesus — was perfectly equipped to handle the oncoming horde.

"Go," he told Rick as he reached for another arrow. "I'll buy you time to get away."

"What about you?"

No way in hell could he leave one of her brothers to fight this many undead alone.

"Don't worry about me." He waved to one of the undead lying dead nearby. "Take that arrow back and give it to Raya. Tell her I'll meet her in Virginia. She'll know where."

"But..."

"Just go." He notched the arrow. "And Sheriff? Protect them with your life."

It was the only confirmation he needed to know this man, Jesus or Kenobi, was one of Raya's siblings.

Rick just didn't know which one.

He didn't have time to find out, either.

With one final look, and a silent prayer the man would be all right, Rick grabbed the arrow before he sprinted off in the direction of the farmhouse he left Raya and her children.

 _Come hell or high-water_ , he decided as he heard arrows sing through the air, he'd do as the man asked.

Even if it killed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all, and welcome!
> 
> On 9/9/2015, I started a crazy crossover as a birthday present to myself. That story, Days Gone Bye, spawned a trilogy of sorts. It seemed fitting to write a companion scene to that story that introduces a character we don't meet until much later in the WD as my birthday present to me this year.
> 
> Please, if you like this story, kudo/bookmark it!


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